


couldn't hide from the thunder

by sunshine_states



Series: a crown of roses in your hair [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bad Ending, Dreams & Hallucinations, F/M, based on the leaks for 8x06, for basically?? everybody??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_states/pseuds/sunshine_states
Summary: There are others in the world who remember the Dragon Queen.





	couldn't hide from the thunder

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "A Sky Full of Song" by Florence + the Machine.

This time, the dream was different.

The ash drifting down from the sky–that was the same. The dread in Jon’s heart was also familiar. But instead of the Iron Throne, his feet carried him to a red door. A lemon tree grew beside it, flowering and sweet. It wasn’t ash spotting his clothes, he realized, but petals.

The door opened and Daenerys stood on the threshold. For a moment she only stared at him in open shock. _Dany,_ he thought, helpless and aching. _Oh, Dany._  She was wearing a gown of flowing silk, blue in a way that caught the color of her eyes. For some reason, that was all he could focus on as she advanced on him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. He’d forgotten the perfect tilt of her lips. He’d forgotten the way her brow wrinkled when she was confused. But he had never forgotten her voice, silver as the inside of a shell, sharp as a knife to the gut.  “What more do you want from me?”

“I–”

“ _What more_ ,” she hissed, advancing on him, “do you _want_ ? My dragons, my friends, my _heart_?”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Jon said desperately. “You were going to kill them all, I _had_ to–”

“Yes,” Daenerys said. There were tears in her eyes; he wanted nothing more than to reach up and wipe them away. “You did. But you and I both know you betrayed me long before that.”

“I didn’t think Sansa would tell anyone.”

“I begged you, Jon,” she said. “I _begged_. I knew what would happen, and you did it anyway, and my own advisor tried to kill me for it.”

“They’re my family.”

“So was I,” she said bitterly. “Once. But more than that, I was your queen. What of the Dance of the Dragons? The Blackfyre Rebellion? The War of the Five Kings? Even if you didn’t want the throne, Varys wanted it for you. Wanted his little puppet king. Did that not concern you, or were you only thinking of your precious honor?”

He’d wanted his sisters to know the truth of him. _And if the truth destroys us?_ He’d told her it wouldn’t, and he had been wrong in that as he had been wrong in everything else. “I never meant it to come to that. You _burned the city_ , Dany.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“My Queen,” he amended.

“Don’t call me that, either,” she said.

“I didn’t lie,” he said. She’d held his hand while he lay aching in his bed, and he’d marveled at the softness of her touch, this woman who commanded armies and dragons. She’d cried then, too. “You will always be my queen.”

Her voice trembled. “I dismiss you from my service.”

Hearing that shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. “I accept that. Your Grace–”

“Don’t call me that, either.” Daenerys sighed. The rage was gone. She only looked sad. “I am resting now. I am _at peace_. Why are you here?”

“You’re the one who’s haunting me,” Jon said.

“As I said,” Daenerys retorted, “I have other things to do than haunt you.”

“I’ve dreamed of you,” he said. The words spilled out against his will. “Over and over again. But this is different.”

Daenerys raised an eyebrow. It was such a familiar expression he had to ball his hand into a fist to keep himself from trailing his fingers down her cheek. “How so?”

“You’re not as happy to see me,” he said. His heart clenched in his chest; this Daenerys was no more real than the other phantoms who haunted his dreams.  “And there’s much less blood.”

Her expression shuttered. “I think you should go now.”

“Dany–”

“Go. _Away_.” Her voice rose and the wind with it, tugging at her pale hair, rocking the boats in the bay. The lemon tree scattered petals on them both. “I don’t want you here.”

He reached for her and she jerked back, stumbling up the steps. The wind rose to a shriek and before Jon could say anything more she had vanished back into the house. The red door slammed, loud as the breaking of the world, and Jon woke with a shout.

He was alone in his chambers. Moonlight spilled through the window, bright as a blade.

No use getting back to sleep. He got up, pulled on a cloak, and went outside.

The courtyard was empty, for which he was grateful. Castle Black had been dreary before the White Walker invasion, and it was drearier still now that it only served as a waypoint for travelers; they said the ghosts of the dead brothers roamed the halls, and the spring thaws that happened every year now filled the echoing corridors with the sound of dripping water. In practice, this meant that most people tended to avoid walking about in the dark, and Jon could be alone with his thoughts.

Five years since the Sack of King’s Landing. Five years since he’d killed Daenerys in the halls her ancestors had built. She came to him in dreams every night, and he killed her again and again, his sword and her slight frame, the blood slippery on his hands. Sometimes, she cursed him. At others, she only wept. He could no longer remember which she had done in truth.

This dream had felt more real, somehow. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean. His friends already thought him half-mad as it was.

He was walking without any real idea of where he meant to go, conscious only of how small he was under the vault of the sky. And so he was properly surprised when a shadow detached itself from the wall and ambled toward him.

“Evening,” he said, resting his hand on Longclaw’s hilt.

“Later than that,” the other man said. What Jon could make out in the moonlight was unremarkable; a bearded face, brown eyes. “You’re Jon Snow, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jon said. “Who are you?”

The man smiled. “Just a fellow traveler.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No,” the man agreed. “But it’s the only one you deserve.”

His eyes flicked to something over Jon’s shoulder. That was the only warning Jon had before something slammed into him from behind. The cold stone of the floor ground into his cheek, and he tasted blood.

“What–” he gasped, feeling for whatever had struck him. His questing fingers found the shaft of an arrow.

Footsteps behind him.

“Well done,” the man said to the archer.

“He’ll die?” A woman’s voice. Jon, choking, tried to turn his head. “Should I do another?”

“Ah, ah,” the man said cheerfully, and a boot smashed into Jon’s face. “None of that. This is only a robbery, Jon Snow. We’re two cutpurses. Or perhaps we’re angry Wildlings. You never know.”

“I thought it would be quicker,” the woman murmured.

“Death rarely is,” the man said.

Daenerys was watching him. He could just make her out in the darkness. She smiled at him, and Jon smiled back.

 _I’m forgiven,_ he thought, giddily. His eyes kept closing, but that was all right. _She’s forgiven me at last._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do love Sansa. It's part of the reason why her Season 8 arc baffles me so much. If I write a follow-up to this, she'll probably be the focus.


End file.
